Book Review as Wine Review: Hugh Pine, Janwillem Lincoln van de Wetering

[eredien]

First impressions: This is a children's book featuring a lot of roadkill, a sub-header reading "Hugh doesn't want to be a man. He just wants to look like one," and an anthropomorphic porcuipine who is mistaken for human by everyone except the post-office manager. I found all of these things strange even when I first read it in third-grade or so, and continue to find them strange every time I reread this book, but you can already tell that this cannot be an unbiased review.

Middle: It was only last night, after rereading this book for maybe the 10th time, that I realized that the book is actually about how hard it is to find satisfactory solutions to the problem of freedom vs. security for both the individual and a collective group of people, and about how hard it is for those boundaries to be navigated among and between cultural and linguistic divides, and especially about the problems that happen when said cultures understand each other just enough so that the solutions that at first look good to later turn out to be very wrong indeed. It is also a book about how animals don't make the same decisions people do, despite having the human world imposing its decisions on them. It is also about a loner trying to deal with things that scare him once he recognizes that the right thing to do is both a.) right and b.) not easy c.) there would be consequences to a decision to choose not to act, as well. It's also a book about how it's necessary for each person to make their own decision about how to draw that boundary, and how sometimes the boundaries that work for most people won't work for all.

Finish: This book is hilarious. "Hugh Pine stayed very still. Maybe they would go away. But the noise only got worse. They were shouting and banging on the tree. Hugh Pine snorted. He began to climb down....'We are the committee,' the three porcupines said. 'Very nice,' Hugh Pine said. 'How very good of you to be the committee, and how very good of you to come and see me. Why don't you go away?'"

I understand that the author also wrote an introduction to Buddhism for children.

Pairs well with: pecan pie, coffee with cream, Lies my Teacher Told me by James W. Loewen.

Comments

[sovay]

This is a children's book featuring a lot of roadkill, a sub-header reading "Hugh doesn't want to be a man. He just wants to look like one," and an anthropomorphic porcuipine who is mistaken for human by everyone except the post-office manager.

I vaguely remember reading this book! I shall have to pick it up again.